Blue Zoo’s Katie Gascoyne Directs Scouting For Girls Christmas Single – Interview!
Every year, multi-BAFTA winning animation studio, Blue Zoo, holds an in-house competition to give anyone the opportunity to direct a short animated film. This year was a chance to direct the music video for the new Scouting For Girls Christmas single. The band chose an idea by Blue Zoo’s Recruitment and Talent Coordinator, Katie Gascoyne. Katie’s film is the first short directed by an administrative team member and the 12th film in Blue Zoo’s boundary-breaking shorts programme.
The delightful film features a gingerbread man named Dan and his partner Mandy. As Dan faces Christmas with the in-laws this daunting prospect is noted by his beloved who goes the extra mile to make things right for the pair just in time of Christmas. This quirky, romantic film is the first release from Blue Zoos new 2D animation studio.
Emmy-winning songwriter David Freedman worked with his son, Jackson Freedman, to write the heartwarming original song performed by enduringly popular UK band, Scouting for Girls. ‘Let’s Not Go Away’ released alongside their new album, ‘The Trouble With Boys’, through Sony Music.
Blue Zoo’s 2D studio opened earlier this year as part of the long-term strategy to diversify and broaden the studio’s content. Currently in production is 2D half-hour buddy comedy, Pony, aimed at 8-10-year-olds. Pony is created by Ant Blades, who will also direct the series. The show currently has an order for 20 half-hour episodes from Nickelodeon.
We caught up with director Katie Gascoyne to talk about her film.
The shorts programme allows any Blue Zoo employee from juniors to CEO’s to pitch an idea, what is your day job at Blue Zoo and what made you go for the pitch?
As the Talent and Recruitment Coordinator at Blue Zoo, my area is all things recruitment, though I do have a background in animation.
I went for the pitch mostly from Blue Zoo co-founder, Tom Box’s, encouragement! Just after last year’s Christmas pitch Tom and I were en route to a recruitment event, and I mentioned how much I’d have loved to have pitched an idea, but that it didn’t make sense being in a non-artist role. Tom immediately assured me of the complete opposite and said that he wished I had pitched, as the more diversity and ideas the better. Because of that there was no question I’d pitch for something this year!
What was the brief this year and how did the gingerbread story come into it?
So we had to pitch an animated music video idea for the new Christmas single ‘Let’s Not Go Away’, by Scouting For Girls. The idea had to be a creative representation of the songs main theme: the wish to spend Christmas cosied up and watching TV, just you and your other half, without the burden of having to put up with their bizarre extended family. One of the buzzwords we were given in the original brief was “odd couple” – and the tensions of bringing characters from two different families/existences/species together.
The gingerbread idea made the most sense based on what I wanted the short to be: funny, romantic, Christmassy and relatable. To me a gingerbread man is a staple of Christmas time but it’s not a symbol that’s too overused – the character needed to represent Christmas, but I wanted to avoid an animal or something typical. Also luckily for me, a gingerbread man is already anthropomorphic so that made it very easy to relate to him on a human level! At first I’d toyed with the idea of his partner being a Christmas pudding – but then what would a pudding and a biscuit have to fight about!? It had a lot more punch, and opportunity for gags, when I paired Dan with a human partner, his girlfriend Mandy. A big inspiration was Kristin Lester’s short ‘Purl’, from the Pixar SparkShorts programme, as I love the fact that with enough set up, you can empathise emotionally with any kind of character – even a ball of yarn or… a gingerbread man!
How did you find the pitching process?
The pitching process this year was very kind actually! It was a blind pitch so we had to prepare some ideas and materials to send over, which would do the talking for us, so we didn’t have any additional pressure of having to talk publicly or present it in some flashy way. We were required to provide a summary of the idea, some rough early character designs, a moodboard of the art style we liked and a breakdown script of what would happen in the animation in time with the lyrics provided.
This was so that the pitch would be judged solely by the idea. In the end, other than any pressure I put on myself, the actual experience of pitching was quite simple!
This is the first 2D project to come out of Blue Zoo in it’s 18 year history – no pressure there then? How did you find directing your first professional film and the first 2D film from Blue Zoo?
Ha! Well there was always going to be pressure! Though I didn’t think too much about this being the first 2D project in BZ’s history to be honest… to me during the pitch, a 2D animation was just the best way to tell this story, and luckily we have a 2D studio now!
I absolutely loved directing this film. At every stage I was blown away by the talent of the 2D team, especially as I come from a 3D animation background, and how lovely they were to work with as a Director. I mean I knew they were talented, of course – I’d recruited quite a few of them! But we had 8 weeks to deliver 3 minutes 15 seconds of animation… as a real music video… with a team of artists who are already incredibly busy on their current 2D project… and yet the level of artistry that these people came out with on such short notice just never failed to amaze me!
To be honest, I think I never thought about the pressure of it being the first 2D short because the time limit alone was enough to worry about. But I’m so proud of what we did and how it came out – it was the most rewarding creative experience I’ve ever had!
Tell us about the team you worked with designing the characters and backgrounds, animating the characters in Harmony?
A big reason why this short looks so lovely is because of our extremely talented Creative Director for the studio, Jacques Gauthier, who was the Art Director for this project. He is a force of nature when it comes to creativity, and was my main support for the duration of the project – I don’t think it would’ve happened without his help!
I really couldn’t say enough about the artists that worked on this short, they were genuinely amazing – it’s not an exaggeration to say I was blown away during every stage of the pipeline. At each stage they were all dealing with very tight deadlines, their normal full-time work, and some notes from me, so the quality of work that they were able to produce was just mind blowing. Design, Layout, Paint, Rigging, Animation, FX, Comp, Edit… all artists within these teams went above and beyond expectations for the time scale that they had.
Animation was a personal highlight for me though, as I’m an animator at heart. Being able to work with the animators, see their process using a different software (as I’m from a 3D background) was really interesting. And I learned a little bit about Toon Boom Harmony so that was fun! I’d also like to emphasise how amazing our Comp & FX team are. They had the tightest deadlines of anyone and faced a mountain of work in the final week, yet they made all finishing touches absolutely beautiful. Overall, I’m so proud to have worked with them on this.
Blue Zoo are well known for their CG work, how are they keeping their identity within a 2D studio?
Blue Zoo’s identity is all about creating entertaining content in a variety of styles, experimenting with the boundaries of software, and making things that people are proud to have worked on. So… I’m hoping we’ve ticked the boxes with all of that with the 2D short!
Within the 2D studio, and on their current TV Series production, it’s still the same atmosphere as BZ’s 3D studio – the vibe is casual, laid back and comfortable, but the artists work hard and are extremely creative in how they apply their skill set and time, because it’s a lot easier to be creative in a comfortable environment. Blue Zoo’s identity as a studio has never been about a house style, as we’re always experimenting with different aesthetics and software, it’s more about the quality of our work. And that quality is still reflected in our 2D projects.
Has this given you a taste to direct more animated projects?
Absolutely, I’d love to direct again! It was both incredibly fun and super difficult – which just made the pay off even better in my eyes. And getting to know more about the 2D pipeline was incredibly interesting. If another idea popped into my brain that I really believed was worth doing, I wouldn’t hesitate to pitch again.
Will you be spending Christmas in a giant Gingerbread house?
Of course… aren’t you?
‘Let’s Not Go Away’ is available to stream everywhere.